LISC Leadership

Michael T. Pugh became CEO of LISC in October 2023. Michael has more than 30 years of experience in banking, with a particular focus on expanding access to capital for underserved families, businesses, and communities. He spent more than a decade at the Harlem-based Carver, leading the nation’s largest publicly traded African American-operated bank, with more than $720 million in assets.

Earlier in his career, Michael was a senior vice president at Capital One, N.A., where he oversaw 75 banking centers and $3 billion in deposits in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Delaware. Prior to that, he was a senior vice president at Citizens Financial Group, leading retail banking in Michigan and Indiana and overseeing 67 banking centers.

A native of Detroit, Michael graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in health care administration. He first became interested in community finance and helping connect people with access to capital while working as a bank teller to support himself in college. In recent years, Michael has volunteered his time on boards and in organizational leadership positions, including with The New York Bankers Association, The Economic Club of New York, the Community Development Bankers Association, and the Society for Financial Education & Professional Development.

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Prior to joining LISC, Christina was the CFO of Working Solutions CDFI, a San Francisco Bay Area microlender. During her time at Working Solutions, she focused on the migration to a single treasury management platform, financial management report creation, debt consolidation, financial forecasting and the implementation of a risk assessment based asset management function.

Christina also spent over two years at the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) as Vice President for Finance & Capital Strategies. In this role, she served as a liaison and resource for LIIF’s banking and other lending relationships. She also oversaw the corporate budget process, financial forecasting, investment portfolio management, treasury services, and cash management.

Before LIIF, she spent ten years at LISC as Senior Vice President for Finance & Capital Strategies. Prior to joining the CDFI industry, Christina worked as a Policy Analyst at New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, completing her service in Zambia, Africa. Christina earned her B.S. in Biology from Duke University and her M.S. in Urban Policy and Management, with a concentration in Community Development Finance, from The New School in New York City.

Connie Max currently serves as LISC’s Executive Vice President of Lending. Connie leads the daily operations of the lending division including, originations, closings and asset management of its $425 million portfolio. Connie also supports efforts to raise and deploy special funding sources. Most recently, Connie served as Vice President and Chief Credit Officer for the Nonprofit Finance Fund managing the approval and portfolio management processes. Previously, she served as the Director of Prudential Financial’s Social Investment Division, managing a portfolio of socially motivated investments of debt, equity and tax credits.

Prior to joining Prudential, Connie was a Managing Director with ShoreBank Advisory Services and as an advisor to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in this role she launched and led a three country commercial loan program (Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia). Her community development work began when she left a mainstream mortgage loan bank position to volunteer in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. Connie speaks Spanish and some Russian, holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration with a Finance concentration from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and a Master’s in International Business Administration from The American Graduate School of International Management.

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